TechCrunch

YankeeFan · Sep 4, 2011

So, in a reversal of their earlier decision, it looks like Arrington will no longer write for TechCrunch, but Tim Armstrong was able to do further damage to his own reputation before they arrived at that decision.

Michael Arrington, whose influential TechCrunch blog covers Silicon Valley, has started a venture capital fund to invest in start-ups, including some that he and his staff write about.

The $20 million CrunchFund is the latest example of Mr. Arrington’s casting aside one of traditional journalism’s cardinal rules — that reporters should avoid conflicts of interest by maintaining distance from the people, organizations and issues they cover — and raises questions about whether industry bloggers are journalists.

Like most news providers, AOL, which reportedly paid $30 million to acquire TechCrunch last year, prohibits reporters at its media sites, including those at The Huffington Post, from investing in the companies they cover.

But AOL has made an exception for Mr. Arrington, who has been the site’s editor. He will take a backseat role at TechCrunch, which is hiring a new managing editor. He will continue to report to Arianna Huffington, who runs AOL’s media properties.

“TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards,” Tim Armstrong, chief executive of AOL, said in an interview.

“We have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch, which is different but is transparent about it.” Not only has AOL approved the fund, it is financing it. AOL invested about $10 million in the CrunchFund, which will operate separately from AOL Ventures, the venture capital fund that AOL brought back to life last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/technology/michael-arrington-techcrunch-blogger-to-invest-in-start-ups.html?_r=2
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YankeeFan · Sep 5, 2011

David Carr:

When Michael Arrington, the editor of the popular Web site TechCrunch, told his bosses at AOL that he was forming a venture capital company to finance some of the technology start-ups that his site wrote about, they did not fire him or ask for his resignation. Instead, last week, they invested about $10 million in his fund.

In doing so, they signed on with Silicon Valley’s moneyed elite to be part of CrunchFund, the new enterprise run by the famously influential and blustering Mr. Arrington. The coverage of technology has spawned many innovations in the news business, but now it seems to be the source of a particularly problematic one.

At this point, it seems that AOL executives would open up a lemonade stand in front of their headquarters if they thought it would help their bottom line. But the idea of a news site that covers every aspect of nascent tech companies sharing a brand name and founder with a venture capital firm financing these same companies seems almost comically over the line.

“TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chief executive, said Thursday afternoon when CrunchFund was announced. “We have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of TechCrunch, which is different but is transparent about it.”

It was a breathtaking admission of TechCrunch’s exceptionalism, and news of Mr. Arrington’s audacious caper roiled the blogosphere all day. At midnight on Thursday I reached Arianna Huffington, head of AOL’s editorial operations, who was traveling in Brazil. Things seemed to have changed in only a few hours.

“Michael has stepped down,” to become a venture capitalist, she said, “and is no longer on the editorial payroll effective immediately.” She added that he could continue to write — Mr. Arrington is a prolific, forceful voice on technology matters — but as an unpaid blogger. Gee, I said to Ms. Huffington, I know we are in a bold new epoch of technology journalism, but the whole thing still seems, well, naughty.

It’s not the usual case of conflict of interest — someone being sent a shiny new gadget and writing about how spiffy it is. This time, there are tens of millions of dollars in play. Coverage in TechCrunch can make or break a start-up, and what about those companies that are not F.O.M.’s (Friends of Mike)?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/business/media/michael-arringtons-audacious-venture.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
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YankeeFan · Sep 5, 2011

@arrington -- Michael Arrington

The fact that journalists are actually debating whether or not I should be silenced is evidence that they still don't know they're dead.

Journalists aren't the gatekeepers. There aren't even any gates any more.

YankeeFan · Sep 8, 2011

Shocked more people aren't interested in this:

Shortly thereafter, however, a company spokesman -- apparently acting at the behest of AOL editorial boss Arianna Huffington -- said that Arrington had been fired. Another company spokeswoman clarified, saying that he was still in the employ of AOL, but in a non-editorial role that would prohibit Arrington from sourcing investment opportunities via TechCrunch.

Arrington mostly stayed out of the public fray until yesterday when he demanded that TechCrunch either be given full editorial independence or sold back to Arrington and other legacy shareholders (AOL had purchased the site last year).

But AOL is not giving TechCrunch its editorial independence. And it is not selling it back to Arrington.

Instead, Fortune has learned that AOL executives have decided to terminate Arrington. It is unclear how this will officially occur. Maybe a pink slip. Maybe Arrington submits a (public?) letter of resignation. Maybe Tim Armstrong simply gives Arrington a phone call, and he quickly dashes off a note to TechCrunch employees on his iPad.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/07/exclusive-arrington-out-at-aol-for-real-this-time/
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terrier · Sep 8, 2011

Arrington doesn't have a non-compete clause, does he?
'Cause when he inevitably starts a new blog of his own, and AOL comes after him DESPITE HAVING FIRED HIM, it's gonna get reaaaaalllly ugly.

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